Thanks in part to the latest flash-memory technology, the Samsung SSD 860 QVO offers a lot of fast storage capacity for minimal money. It's a winning internal solid-state drive for budget-minded upgraders.

A full terabyte of reliable, long-lasting solid-state storage for your next PC build or laptop-upgrade project...for as little as $150? That's no longer a pipe dream. Thanks to ever-evolving solid state drive (SSD) technology, it's now possible for manufacturers to offer 1TB or larger SSDs without blowing your budget into the stratosphere. SSD prices have been dropping hard, but the price slashing is hitting gritty new lows due to moves by Samsung, one of the biggest flash-memory players. The Samsung SSD 860 QVO, a Serial ATA (SATA) drive, is available in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. The 1TB version we tested will retail for an eye-poppingly low $149 when it goes on sale later this month, making it one of the least expensive internal SSDs that PCMag has tested at this—or any—capacity on a cost-per-gigabyte basis. For value-minded upgraders, it's a winner in our book, by almost every measure.

Similar Products

More Density, Fewer Dollars

One of the most straightforward ways to make consumer SSDs cheaper is to increase the density of their memory cells. Everything else being equal, the fewer cells that a drive needs to have to achieve a given capacity, the less expensive it will be to produce.

Storing more data in each cell is a way to reduce the number of cells required. Most SSDs on the market today contain two or three bits per cell. For instance, you'll find a triple-level cell (TLC) arrangement in PCMag's current Editors' Choice for high-end M.2 SSDs, the Samsung SSD 970 EVO. (For a primer on SSD lingo, see our guide Buying an SSD: 20 Terms You Need to Know.)

The problem is that as cell density increases, it's harder to access the data that you need, which means the SSD's read and write speeds can suffer. That's why the fastest drives on the market, such as the Samsung SSD 970 Pro, generally stick to a two-level cell arrangement. If you can figure out how to add more bits per cell without adversely affecting drive performance, then you've got an SSD breakthrough on your hands.

Samsung claims to have done just that with the SSD 860 QVO. This drive packs in four bits per cell, an arrangement that, to date, has typically been found only in SSDs destined for servers or other enterprise environments. With the SSD 860 QVO, however, Samsung's engineers tinkered not only with the cell arrangement, but also the DRAM, the controller, and the firmware to produce a four-bits-per-cell arrangement that has performance comparable to that of existing TLC drives. In short, the company has a potential SSD blockbuster here.

That potential is tempered somewhat by the SSD 860 QVO's interface. It uses the venerable but slightly antiquated Serial ATA (SATA) interface to connect with your PC's motherboard. This also helps control costs and boost compatibility, since SATA is so widely used, but it also limits read and write speeds to a maximum of around 600MBps. Drives in the M.2 form factor that run over the PCI Express bus, meanwhile, support transfer speeds as high as 3,000MBps. (They are often a tad pricier.) Four-bit-per-cell NVMe-based SSDs do exist, but they're few and far between, and PC Labs hasn't reviewed any yet. (We will be evaluating one shortly, though: the P1 from Crucial/Micron.)

Attractive for Cost-Conscious Upgraders

The result of all this? If copious amounts of very fast—if not the absolute fastest—storage appeals to you, the SSD 860 QVO should be very attractive. For cost-conscious system builders and upgraders, this new drive is a great alternative to buying a small 128GB or 256GB SSD to store your operating system and other critical files, while relegating everything else to a separate, much slower multi-terabyte hard drive. This kind of dual-drive approach helps keeps costs down, but the SSD 860 QVO potentially renders it obsolete. And in situations where you can install only one 2.5-inch drive (such as in many older laptops), it's a boon.

Even the lowest-capacity version of the SSD 860 QVO, at 1TB, should be more than enough for casual computing use, such as web browsing, document editing, streaming movies, and storing years' worth of photos. Most high-end laptops and desktops currently ship with 512GB SSDs, or around half the capacity. If you plan to build a budget gaming rig or have a large multimedia collection, meanwhile, you'll want to aim for the 2TB drive ($300). The 4TB model ($600) is overkill for most casual users.

Each of the three models uses the standard 2.5-inch drive enclosure that is found on many older laptops that employ hard drives. (Most newer laptops that have an SSD as a boot drive are moving to the M.2 form factor or are soldering them down.) If you're installing an SSD 860 QVO in a desktop PC case, you might need to buy an inexpensive adapter to convert a 3.5-inch drive bay into one that will fit a 2.5-inch drive, since Samsung does not include one in the box. But increasingly, desktop chassis have bays sized for 2.5-inch drives, or alternate screw holes in their 3.5-inch trays or bays for mounting a 2.5-incher.

The SSD 860 QVO comes with a three-year warranty. That is respectable, but shorter than the five years that Samsung offers with the SSD 970 EVO and SSD 970 Pro, and that Crucial offers with its Crucial MX500 SATA SSD.

In addition to considering the warranty periods, you'll also want to look at the reliability or write ratings, which most SSD makers provide for their drives nowadays. Samsung expects the 1TB version of the SSD 860 QVO offer peak performance until you've written a total of 360TB to it. (Once you hit that point, "worn" cells may begin to decommission, or go out of service, reducing capacity.) That's an excellent number for an inexpensive SATA SSD; the 1TB Crucial MX500, in contrast, is projected to last for just 180TB written. Even most heavy power users shouldn't write more than 10GB per day, so if Samsung's rating holds, the SSD 860 QVO could theoretically last for decades.

Samsung's excellent Magician software lets you see the status of any of the company's hard drives, as well as perform basic functions, such as firmware updates. Although I tested the SSD 860 QVO before Samsung added Magician support for it, I expect functionality to be much the same as with other Samsung SSDs I've tested—that is to say, straightforward and easy to use.

Performance Hit: Nil, Just SATA-Standard

Because the SSD 860 QVO uses the SATA interface, it can't achieve read or write speeds greater than approximately 600MBps, which is the interface's theoretical ceiling. That means it will be much faster than a conventional spinning hard drive, but not nearly as fast as PCI Express drives like the SSD 970 EVO.

Crystal DiskMark 6.0

Indeed, on the Crystal DiskMark 6.0 sequential throughput test, the SSD 860 QVO achieved a write score of 563MBps and a read score of 532MBps, which puts it in good company with other mainstream and enthusiast-grade SATA SSDs we've tested, such as the Samsung SSD 860 Pro and the Crucial MX500.

The same is true of the SSD 860 QVO's performance on the Crystal DiskMark random (4K) throughput test, which, as is typical, results in much slower speeds than the sequential test but is more representative of typical computing tasks like program launches and bootups.

AS-SSD File and Folder Transfers

These throughput scores are theoretical, of course, and they could vary greatly depending on the type of computing task you're currently performing. To get a better sense of real-world performance, PC Labs uses the SSD-specific utility AS-SSD to approximate a few different scenarios that simulate copying three very different file and folder types from one location on the drive to the other. The SSD 860 QVO managed to transfer a giant ISO (disc) file at 959MBps, a program folder at 678MBps, and a game folder at 1,198MBps.

The ISO-file transfer speed is in line with the drive's SATA competitors, but the program and game transfers are swift. This indicates that under certain scenarios, the SSD 860 QVO might actually perform a bit better than other less-dense SATA drives like the Crucial MX500.

PCMark 8 Storage Test

Overall, if you're planning to install the SSD 860 QVO in a PC that will be used for everyday tasks such as web browsing, you should expect on-point-for-SATA performance, based on the results of the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark...

The QVO drive's score of 4,881 on this holistic test is within arm's reach of the 5,000 mark around which nearly all SATA SSDs cluster.

An SSD-Pricing Stunner

At just $149 for 1TB, or 15 cents per gigabyte, the SSD 860 QVO is a steal even when measured against other budget SSDs like the Crucial MX500. By moving to four-bit memory cells without a sacrifice in performance, Samsung could very well be dealing a stunning blow not just to competing SSDs, but to hard drives too. In fact, the SSD 860 QVO is fast, cheap, and capacious enough to serve as the only drive you need if you're upgrading or building a budget PC.

Read More

About the Author

As a hardware analyst, Tom tests and reviews laptops, peripherals, and much more at PC Labs in New York City. He previously covered the consumer tech beat as a news reporter for PCMag in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where he rode in several self-driving cars and witnessed the rise and fall of many startups. Before that, he worked for PCMag's s... See Full Bio

Samsung SSD 860 QVO

Samsung SSD 860 QVO

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.